APUSH 11

Individualism  word coined by Alexis de Tocqueville in 1835 to describe Americans as people no longer bound by social attachments to classes, castes and associations and families

American Renaissance  a literary explosion during the 1840s inspired in part by Emerson's ideas on the liberation of the individual

Transcendentalism  A19th century intellectual movement that posited the importance of an ideal world of mystical knowledge and harmony beyond the immediate grasp of the senses

Utopias  communities founded by reformers and transcendentalists to help realize their spiritual and moral potential and to escape from the competition of modern industrial society

Socialism a system of social and economic organization based on the common ownership of goods or state control of the economy

Perfectionism  christian movement of the 1830s that beloved people could achieve moral perfection in their earthly lives because the Second Coming of Christ had already occurred

Mormonism  the religion of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, founded by Joseph Smith in 1830

Minstrelsy  popular theatricals entertainment begun around 1830 in which white actors in blackface presented comic routines that combined racists caricature and social criticism

Abolitionism  the social reform movement to end slavery immediately and without compensation that began in the Us in the 1830s

Underground Railroad  an informal network of whites and free blacks in the South that assisted fugitive slaves to reach freedom in the North

Amalgamation  a term for racial mixing and intermarriage, almost universally opposed by whites in the nineteenth century US

Gag Rule a procedure in the House of Representatives from 1836 to 1844 by which anti slavery petitions were automatically tabled when they were received so that they could not become the subject of debate

Separate sphere   a term used by historians to describe the nineteenth century view that mean and women have different gender-defined characteristics and, consequently, that men should dominate the public sphere of politics and economics, while women should manage the private sphere of home and family

Domestic slavery  a term referring to the assertion by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other female abolitionists that traditional gender roles and legal restrictions created a form of slavery for married women

Married women's property laws   Laws enacted between 1839 and 1860 in New York and other states that permitted married women to own, inherit, and bequeath property

Seneca Falls Convention  The first women's rights convention in the United States. In 1848.